How Do You Get HPV?

Skin warts are spread through direct skin-to-skin contact with an infected person.

You can also spread warts from one part of your body to another through touch.

Children and teens, people who bite their nails or pick at hangnails, and people with a weakened immune system have a higher risk of getting common warts.

Mucosal HPV types are transmitted through intimate skin-to-skin contact — most commonly through vaginal or anal sex but also through oral sex.

Anyone who's sexually active is at risk for getting HPV, even if you've had only one sexual partner.

Symptoms from HPV may develop years after you become infected. You can pass HPV on to other people during this asymptomatic period, and you can get HPV from someone who doesn't show any symptoms.

You're at higher risk for genital HPV if you:

Haven't been vaccinated against HPV

Have many sexual partners

Have a sexual partner who has had many sexual partners

Are younger than 25 years old

Started having sex when you were 16 years old or younger

Are an uncircumcised man

Are a woman who has a male sexual partner who is uncircumcised

HPV Prevalence

According to the CDC, HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection.

In fact, nearly all sexually active men and women get HPV at some point in their lives, the CDC notes.

It's not uncommon to be infected with more than one type of HPV at a time.

For example, between 2003 and 2006 — before the introduction of HPV vaccines — about 21.6 percent of U.S. women were infected with more than one genital HPV type, according to a 2013 report in the journal Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

In 2008, an estimated 39.9 million women and 39.2 million men had a prevalent genital HPV infection in the United States, the report notes.

It goes on to state that each year, there are about 14 million new cases of genital HPV among men and women ages 15 to 59.

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